Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site

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Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site

Stonehenge and Avebury are listed together as a single UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site is globally famous for its instantly recognisable stone circle; one of the most sophisticated and carefully engineered prehistoric monuments in the world. There is however far more to explore in these two remarkable landscapes where evidence of our prehistoric past in the form of impressive, remarkably preserved monuments and burial mounds lies all around for the visitor to discover.

The World Heritage Site is made up of two landscapes: Stonehenge in the south of Wiltshire around 10 miles from Salisbury; and Avebury in the north which is 11 miles from Swindon and lies between Devizes and Marlborough. Each landscape covers an area of around 25 square kilometres much of which visitors can explore using public footpaths and permissive access provided by landowners. At the Stonehenge Visitor Centre and the Alexander Keiller Museum in Avebury you can find out about the development of the World Heritage landscape and its monuments over a period of around 2000 years from the early Neolithic period through to the Bronze Age. You can then go out and discover evidence of how prehistoric people shaped their landscape through the monuments they built. At Stonehenge these include the massive henge at Durrington Walls, Woodhenge and the densest concentration of burial mounds in Britain. At Avebury the West Kennet Avenue, Silbury Hill and West Kennet Long Barrow still form impressive landmarks and dominant features in the landscape. New discoveries are made every year by archaeologists working in the World Heritage Site so there is always a reason to come back.

If you are keen to explore further you can visit Salisbury Museum or the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes where you can learn more about the World Heritage Site from their nationally important collections which include finds from excavations at both Stonehenge and Avebury. Nature lovers will find a great deal to enjoy alongside the archaeology in these remarkable world famous cultural landscapes set amid beautiful chalk downlands full of wild flowers, farmland birds and wildlife.